Yawn - I'm a teenager, Mum! Let me sleep.

Why won't Mum just let me sleep?

And why is she holding that black flashy thing so close to my nose? What if I sneeze on it, or lick it the next time - bet she wouldn't like that, but it might make her leave me alone? Can't she see that I'm tired?

What does she expect? - she sent me to kennels again; four nights wasn't long enough to catch up on all the gossip, so, of course, I had to stay up really late chatting with all the other dogs, and then spend most of the days barking at the nice girls who serve the food and take us for walks. Unfortunately, I wasn't taken to the salon this time, didn't get to wrestle with the brush or eat the bubbles, so didn't smell so good when I got home, which was probably just as well as my big friend Boswell came to play. It was a very kind thought of my human family to invite him, and his human family who had to come with him, too. I'm not sure what Bos would have thought if I had been all cologned and shiny.

We had a great time, me showing Bos my garden, nipping him to make him play (he can be quite elderly in his attitude to play sometimes), and rolling on my back beneath him to make him stop when he got too strong for me. Later, we sat outside the kitchen window and kept up a constant whining serenade, while the assorted humans inside burnt their food and ate it and drank something out of long bottles, that I suspect makes them laugh a lot.We both thought they were a bit ungrateful when they yelled at us instead of rewarding us with some food for our beautiful singing.

As if all that isn't enough to make me tired, my room has been hijacked - the walls have changed colour, the ceiling is whiter, all the pictures have gone, the shoes are in a huge pile in the middle of the floor and my cage is in a different place. And it smells funny, making me sneeze. Something has been giving me nightmares - Mum says I'm all twitchy and whining when I'm asleep - maybe it's the smell.

And I can't sleep anyway, because there is a choir of noisy owls that keeps us all awake at around midnight each night, and as if that isn't bad enough, a fox has been trespassing into my garden and his grunting wakes me and then Mum at 4.30am - which she says something quite rude about. But that isn't very fair cos it's not my fault ... so no more photos: please let me sleep, Mum.

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Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

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Walking The Dog

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